Inspection finds employer ignored hazardous energy control procedures that protect employees performing maintenance on machinery.

Eager to get to that project you’ve been planning – the one that will require you to use power tools? In addition to the obvious hazards (saws cut off about 4,000 fingers in the U.S. each year, for instance), there are electrical hazards that you may not be thinking about – but you should be.

Two employees in two different incidents each lost a finger last year at a Georgia manufacturing company – injuries that OSHA says could have been avoided. The amputations occurred within a three month period at Elite Storage Solutions LLC. The company was issued 24 safety and health violations with proposed total penalties of $125,165.

A welder died because Metal Shredders of Miamisburg, Ohio failed to protect him from an energized electrical line while he was cutting a metal roof off an industrial transformer substation, according to OSHA, which initiated an investigation at the company’s facility after the worker’s death.

The passage of electric current causes deep injuries to the anatomical structures, leading to serious consequences for the patients. The most common sites for such accidents due to electricity are power stations, which are often unsupervised and thus allow people free access, thus making it possible for them to come into contact with high-voltage cables.

These tragic electrocutions, all investigated by NIOSH, show just how widespread and unexpected electrical dangers can be, sometimes involving the most ordinary types of work: